


Coils

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Apples, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Domestic Fluff, Don't copy to another site, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Sleepy Cuddles, Snake Crowley, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), herpetology, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 13:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21302651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Crowley's a little uncertain about being a snake around his angel. But it grows on him.“That’s rather an odd mascot for a bookshop.”“Not at all. Snakes eat mice and other vermin. Mice are a constant peril to old books, you know.”“Do you let him loose at night then?”“Oh, assuredly. I wouldn’t think of restraining him after hours.”“He’s lovely. Do you think I could touch him?”“He is that. Perhaps not today, my dear. He’s just molted and it makes him very testy.”
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 78
Kudos: 488





	Coils

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little bit of snek fluff to apologize to Crowley for how bitchy he was in my last fic. The final part owes a bit to Periphyton's "Smol Snek In A Big World" (q.v.). (That means go read it.)

He slept mostly to please the demon, who loved to share that repose with him, that extra dissolution after they’d already blurred and blended, tenderly or urgently, into one another. Waking was an interesting sensation, cobbling yourself back from a drift of images and memories tossed together chock-a-block from all of history.

This time there was only cool pillow under his arm where he’d thrown it over Crowley not long before. He smiled and turned face up, pretty sure what was going to happen next. As he stretched the sleep out of his bones – another new, luxurious, pleasant feeling – a blunt snout nosed at the arch of his left foot, butting against it a few times before tickling it with a flickering tongue. A heavy, smooth, muscular weight wound around his ankle, another loop going up to his knee, the underside of a kid-leather jaw rubbing before a longer flurry of forked tongue at the soft crease. He waited till the square snout was nosing his thigh, moving up to rest on his hipbone, and laid his hand on the broad head, rubbing between the eyes with his thumb. The long, heavy coils curved sinuously back and forth across his belly and wide chest, stopping to flick his navel, the head resting over his heart at last so that he could feel the beat against it as he stroked it. Finally the blunt nose pressed behind his ear, the tongue flickering up in his hair, and then Crowley’s whole weight was lying sprawled upon him, shaking lightly with laughter.

“_Satan,_ do you know how good that feels? You’re so warm and soft when I’m a snake.”

“And at other times?”

“Then too. Oh, what’s this? Think I’ve tempted you again.”

“When you changed back. You know how I like that.” Feeling himself suddenly pinned down by the length of Crowley’s human form had a reliable effect.

“ ‘Nother reason I do it.”

He nuzzled the sharp angle of the demon’s jaw, courting a kiss. “You should make sure I fall into sin then.”

* * *

They could banter like this now. At first it hadn’t been this easy for Crowley to be his snake self with the angel. For so long, it had meant only damnation and being outcast, _on your belly shall you crawl,_ to the point his human corporation walked on eerily long supple legs as if to prove that curse wrong. It was Aziraphale who’d sensed the connection at last, said one night while they were trading drowsy kisses, fingertips, collarbones, flanks, _would you be a snake for me? Do you know I actually haven’t seen you like that since Eden – I remember you coming up on the Wall…_

Crowley had quivered like a plucked string then. _You don’t want that up close, do you?_ He’d pulled away, but the angel held him tight, folded him close – he was surprisingly strong in a quiet way – and said _I’m not letting you go till you show me._ There had been a drawn-out moment, and then a space between the angel’s arms, as the dark coils whispered loose from his grip and wrapped around him, hugging him, the long head slipping up to rest on his shoulder. The scales were silky and glossy, not rough, layered over each other like the eyes on a peacock’s tail, shimmering with holographic reflection.

_You’re beautiful_, he’d said, and meant it. The snout had pushed into the notch behind his ear, the tapered tail-end lapped around his ankles. He’d stroked the wide head until he began to drift sleepily, as he was learning to do when his demon liked it, and presently found his arms full again with lanky limbs, October-red hair falling against his cheek. It was a game for them after that.

“It’s good to be that way with you,” said Crowley now, once they’d seen to business, as tended to happen. “People hate snakes. Like a slap every time they reminded me.”

“There was that Minoan priestess you told me about.”

“That was work. Same thing with the Pythia.”

“You were busy around the Aegean in those days.”

“Go where I’m told.”

“I’d noticed.”

“Mmhm. Not work when you tell me.”

“Speaking of going. I need to open the shop. I actually promised a collector he could look, if he’d stop pestering to buy that illustrated Mandeville. You’ve made me lose track of time.”

“One of my Infernal powers. Lots more to show you.”

“How ever did my waistcoat get up there–? Crowley, you don’t have to get up too. I know how you like to sleep.”

“No, just had an idea. I’m going shopping.”

* * *

“Crowley, what on earth is this? And where am I supposed to put it?”

“Let me sort it out. South window, it’ll fit if we move these over here – “

“It’s as big as you are – “

“Tell me about it. Took a bloody miracle to get it into the Bentley, not to mention in your door.”

“Why did you get – “

“Took the clerk’s advice. Never been domesticated before, angel, needed pointers.”

“Careful – I’ll take those – “

“Nnnnnn_choo!”_ Crowley’s sneeze, like everything about him, was extravagant. “When’d you clean these windows? Boer War?”

“I’m sure it’s been since the Jubilee – “

“Get a towel or something.”

“I don’t even know yet – what are all these things? I don’t know that this old wiring will suit a heat lamp – ”

“Window dressing, angel. Gotta make your new hobby look convincing. Be right back, I left the river rocks in the boot.”

* * *

“That’s rather an odd mascot for a bookshop.”

“Not at all. Snakes eat mice and other vermin. Mice are a constant peril to old books, you know.”

“Do you let him loose at night then?”

“Oh, assuredly. I wouldn’t think of restraining him after hours.”

“He’s lovely. Do you think I could touch him?”

“He is that. Perhaps not today, my dear. He’s just molted and it makes him very testy.”

Crowley was perched in some vague relation to one of the settees when Aziraphale turned back from seeing his customer out.

“_Mice…?” _ he said, a little direly.

“Simply accounting for your presence, my dear.”

“And it’s ‘shed,’ not ‘molted’.”

“I trust I can be forgiven. It was you that started this, after all. You seem to be quite a hit with the ladies.”

“Expected them to scream and run. Solve that pesky little problem you have with customers.”

“It seems to have backfired. That American woman last week wouldn’t leave.”

“How was I meant to know there're that many snake fanciers? You did a rubbish job answering her questions, by the way, I’ll have to walk you through it. You’re supposed to at least know my species.”

“I’ve settled on _Pantherophis Edenii.”_

“And my natural habitat.”

“ ‘Mayfair’ was all I could think of. It didn’t seem like the right answer.”

”And when you said I was very choosy and only liked select varieties of live prey…”

“Stop that, the door’s not locked.”

“You could lock it.”

* * *

“I thought I’d find you out here.”

The apple tree in the back garden – it was a well-tended Orange Pippin whose fruit was just at peak ripeness – had been one of the things that sold them the cottage. At this time of day the slanting afternoon sun picked up the gloss on the red-gold fruit, and played over the large serpentine shape coiled around one of the middle branches.

“They’re gone. Really, dear, they _are_ tiresome, but we’ve just moved in and one should be courteous to the neighbours.”

The snake wound its way out through the leaves until its head swayed a little above the branch, butting against the angel’s hand and rising like a cat against the stroking thumb.

“You’ve been out here quite long enough. It’s going to get cold.”

Small teeth nipped the angel's fingertip, daintily.

There was a vigorous rustle in the leaves as the blunt black head withdrew and seemed almost to be striking, once, twice. A perfect fruit fell to the grass, and Crowley’s boots followed it. Leaves caught in his autumn hair, almost the same red-gold as the apples.

“Nice one,” he said, holding it up to the angel’s lips. Smiling fondly, Aziraphale bit into it with a crisp snap.

Crowley lowered his head to the other side. Juice sprayed, and his forked tongue flicked out.

“I suppose this takes you back?” said Aziraphale.

“The first time, I didn’t even get a taste."

“And we seem to still be here, dear. No thundering voice or rain.”

The demon was shivering lightly as he slid into Aziraphale’s arms.

“I’ve made a fire. Come in.”

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> Hat tip to my stepmother Adelia (only six months younger than I am -- go Dad, wherever in the Celestial Realms you are), who lives in a house trailer with various cats and snakes and gave me pointers on the right size tank for Snake Crowley as I depicted him here. 100 gallons, in case you were wondering. I once had to go for a run to give her time to gaze starry-eyed at a big black snake in a tank at the local nature center, one who looked remarkably familiar. She's the American woman mentioned in the bookshop dialogue.
> 
> As always, comments are life -- if you're moved to leave kudos, I'd love to know what you liked!
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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